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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (5062)	1/1/1998 2:56:00 PM
From: Sergio R. Mejia	Respond to of 116753

Is gold losing its believers? Some defend fading metal ... Happy New Year to All Many thanks to all posters for the excellent contributions, and specially to Alex and Tom. I hope nobody has posted this articles yet. Sergio cbs.marketwatch.com cbs.marketwatch.com SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Most investors are turning their heads toward a new year and away from gold, which at $290 an ounce is at its lowest point in almost 15 years. Indeed, while gold has its believers -- see sidebar -- it also has its skeptics. "I just returned from a trip from Europe," says reader Jim Esler, who predicts that more central banks will liquidate their reserves when European currencies unify starting in 1999. "My impression is that the transition to the Euro will greatly upset the price of gold, and in turn further destabilize the Asian currency markets." Esler explains that the 11 nations participating in monetary union will be forced to sell reserves to meet the fiscal standards of a new European central bank. Esler also wonders how a united European economy will grapple with the "diversity of economies." He says "the Netherlands economy is similar to our own in terms of unemployment and growth. But in Italy, the unemployment picture is vastly more gloomy; 7 percent in the North and about 33 percent in the South." At the end of the day (or the millennium), the question for observers such as Esler is: "Who will be buying U.S. Treasury bonds?" Another reader sends in a favorite gold Web site. The site, at gold-eagle.com, offers more than 400 pages of gold data. It also contains a kind of epitaph to gold, in the form of a famous Alan Greenspan remark. "The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists (government bureaucrats) to use the banking system as an unlimited expansion of credit," Greenspan says. "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth." Gold defender A longtime believer in downtrodden gold, California newsletter writer James Dines, says the metal's tough times are contributing to Asian currency turmoil. Gold this year fell below $290 an ounce for the first time in 15 years. Central bankers' sales of the metal are rattling gold investors. "We predict that without the unifying standard that gold provides, these currency crises will continue with what we call Vesuvian tremors," Dines says. "These currency crises will happen again and again unless gold is restored as the primary monetary asset," he says. Dines says the prices of gold and silver are close to their "bottoms" and will soon rise, sending prices of depressed gold mining shares far higher. Silver prices are jumping to their highest point in a decade amid talk of hedge fund buying. Silver last week rose as high as $6.37 an ounce. Gold rose almost as high as $298 an ounce before sliding back to the $290 area. Still, gold prices this month have drifted higher and are far closer to $300 an ounce than the $282.50 low the metal has already touched.

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (5062)	1/1/1998 6:34:00 PM
From: John Stopforth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116753

George, you said: The nice thing about the current gold situation is that prices have been driven so low that huge gains are possible without the yellow having to challenge the $400 line in the sand. Again I agree with you entirely, the price of gold and gold stocks are much closer to the bottom than the top and now is a good time to nibble. I bought WIM on Toronto a small gold producer which is losing money (or will be losing money, they have hedged for 1998) for gold below $302 US. The stock was trading at $1 cdn one year ago and is now trading at $.35 cdn. It will be interesting to see if gold breaks its previous low of $381 (I think) in the next week or it has a higher low. John